


In A Name

by Lisbetadair



Category: Call of Duty (Video Games)
Genre: Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 2, Call of Duty: Modern Warfare 3, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-04-19
Updated: 2018-02-11
Packaged: 2019-03-16 23:36:06
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 5
Words: 4,017
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/13646778
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Lisbetadair/pseuds/Lisbetadair
Summary: The men of Task Force 141 have some unusual nicknames, and there's a story behind each one. This is a series of short vignettes about certain oddly named individuals: Chemo, Poet and Sandman, Roach and Toad so far. It is intermittently updated whenever I get new idea.





	1. Chapter 1

** Chapter 1: Chemo **

“The _both_ of them?” exclaimed Ghost, incredulously.

“Yup.” Chemo sank back in the chair and put his feet up on the coffee table. He grinned back at Ghost with the smug smile of the sexually satisfied.

In the lounge of the Task Force’s housing, a vital post-mortem was in progress. The night before had been Roach’s thirtieth birthday, and this had been marked with a night of raucous celebration. Roach now lay on the sofa beside them, in pretty much the same position as Ghost had deposited him, comatose, the night before when they had staggered home. He was covered in a blanket and the only reason that they knew he was still alive were the intermittent groans of apparent ultimate suffering.

Ghost had last seen Chemo perched on a bar stool, sandwiched between two gorgeous students who had been lucky or unlucky enough to have been sitting at the bar when the team burst through its doors, singing loudly and incoherently. He remembered that they had been tall, black and mostly made of lithe, toned legs, which should have, in Ghost’s opinion put them out of the league of the ugly bastards on the Task Force, _especially_ Chemo.

“How do you do it?” he asked, exasperated. According to Chemo, the girls had shared a hotel room and had keenly extended this arrangement to include him.

“What can I say, man? The ladies love me. Good looks-“

“My _arse_!”

“Charm.”

“ _Charm_?” Ghost spluttered. “Give over! Getting hit on the head with a brick’s more charming than you.” He scowled jealously into his tea.

“What are you two chatting about?” MacTavish appeared behind them. He was halfway through a bacon roll. When he spoke, crumbs erupted.

“How women find me irresistible.” Replied  Chemo.

“And I think it’s bollocks!” snapped Ghost.

“You are not wrong.” Replied MacTavish. He lifted the blanket and watched Roach curl away from the light, groaning. He laughed.

“What?” said Ghost.

“It’s my balls.” Replied Chemo.

“What the bloody hell are you talking about?”

“Oh? You’ve not heard this story?” MacTavish dropped the blanket back over Roach and sat down on the edge of the table.

“No. What story?” Ghost looked between them, confused.

“I had cancer.” Said Chemo.

“Really? When?”

“Oh. When I was younger.  One day, I was just whacking it off and then I noticed this big-ass lump on one of my boys.”

Ghost hooted with laughter. Chemo gave him a look. “Sorry.” He stopped.

“ _Anyway_ , it turned out to be cancer. So they had to chop it out.”

“So you’ve only got one bollock?” said Ghost.

“Not quite. In order to balance things back out, they put in a prosthetic.”

“A fake bollock?” Ghost’s brow furrowed as he tried to imagine what this would look like.

“In less eloquent terms: yes.”

“And this gets you women how?”

“Oh, you know. They love a sob story. So I just work it into the conversation. Tell them all about the emotional agony and when they’re hooked I just drop in about the prosthetic and then -this is the kicker-  they ask if you can tell which one is which and I merely offer them the chance to find out.”

“You’re _joking_.” Ghost stared, open mouthed, at this revelation.

“True story, bro. Every damn time. Always curious, always want to prove to you that they’re smart.”

“And they go for it?”

“Most times. Some of them even pop the question straight off; ask if they can get a feel.” Chemo took a sip of coffee.

“You sly _bastard_!” Ghost thumped the table with his fist and laughed. A thought struck him.  “Do they get it right?”

Chemo rocked his head from side to side. “Sometimes.”

“How hard can it be?” Ghost shrugged.

“You want to find out?”

Ghost snorted. “In your dreams.”

 

 

 


	2. Poet

** Chapter 2: Poet **

“You wanted to see me, Sir?”

“Aye.”

It was late in the evening, but Poet found MacTavish still in his office. The only light came from an ancient  spring-arm desk lamp, illuminating the mess of papers that lay strewn across the workspace. The light cast long, dark shadows across MacTavish’s face. Poet didn’t know how old the man was, but tonight he looked ancient, and troubled. Crumpled balls of paper formed little piles over the floor. Poet tiptoed between them and sat down.

The air of the room was thick with the sweet, choking stench of cigar smoke. MacTavish took a long drag and then stubbed the remains in the overflowing ashtray. He looked at Poet, sizing him up, for longer than Poet felt comfortable with. It made it worse that he couldn’t think of anything he’d done to warrant being called to see the captain.

“Is there something wrong?” asked Poet, eventually.

MacTavish looked at him and pursed his lips. Poet wondered if that was the wrong question.

“The boys tell me that you’re a writer.” Said MacTavish, steepling his fingers under his chin and sliding them up across his lips to rest them under his nose.

Poet blinked. He hadn’t been expecting this line of questioning.

“Yes, sir. I had a short story published last month.” He frowned, confused. “Is that a problem? It wasn’t about my work.”

“No.” Said MacTavish, and then he sighed. “Look. This is a.... personal matter.”

Poet nodded. He felt it would be simpler if he pretended that he understood.

“There are some things...” MacTavish looked past Poet, into the corner of the room and then he stopped. He sat forward and clasped his hands on the desk. “As a man...” He sighed and then looked up at Poet “I mean... Women? Eh?” He laughed, nervously.

Poet smiled benignly, trying to not betray his concern. He had no idea what MacTavish was talking about, and was beginning to suspect he might have finally flipped. “They certainly... are.” He concurred.

“You’re married, right?” MacTavish asked, abruptly.

“Yes, sir. Four years. We have a house in Santa Barbera, and a dog.”

MacTavish nodded. “Do you write to her?”

Poet blinked. _What the hell is this?_   “Yes, sir. Every week.”

“Every _week_?” said MacTavish, incredulous. “What the hell do you write about?”

“How things are going.” Poet shrugged. “That I love her.”

“You tell her you love her?”

 _Jesus. What does he want from me?_ “Yes sir. That’s why I married her.” He said. He was starting to feel a little anxious by the line of questioning.

There was a very pregnant pause, and finally MacTavish said “How... how do you do that?”

“ _What?”_ exclaimed Poet. He started to laugh and then he saw MacTavish’s expression. “Look, sir. If you don’t mind me asking, what is this about?”

MacTavish looked away for a moment, clearly embarrassed.

Enlightenment dawned. “This is about Dr Campbell, isn’t it?”

“Who told you about that?” MacTavish snapped. Even in the poor lighting, Poet could see the flush rising in the captain’s face.

“Maybe I got a sixth sense.” Poet answered. He spoke frankly. He sensed they were beyond the usual formal boundaries of their relationship. “Maybe I saw her not nailing your wrist when you crashed out that Humvee, and maybe I did see her sneaking out of the window last week.“

MacTavish was silent again. Poet knew he’d hit the mark.

“Not a word of this leaves this office.” Said MacTavish, his voice stern.

“Absolutely.” Poet held up his hands. He didn’t have the heart to tell him that the “secret” relationship was old news.

There was another awkward silence.

“Look.” MacTavish said. “I need... help. “ He passed over a crumpled piece of paper. Poet smoothed it out and read it. It took all his effort to keep his face steady.

“It’s not funny.” Growled MacTavish.

“Not at all sir.” Poet bit his tongue to keep from laughing. “You do know that it doesn’t all have to rhyme?”

“It’s a _poem_.”

“Well, yeah. But it doesn’t _have_ to rhyme. It’s about the images you try to put on paper. You know, stuff like the colour of her hair. I mean, like...” He suddenly felt nervous telling this to his boss. He scratched anxiously at the back of his head. “My wife is Hispanic, so she’s dark. And I say, when she’s thinking about something and I don’t know what it is, I say that looking into her eyes is like scrying into a pool of molasses.”

MacTavish seemed to think about this. “Molasses eh? That’s like treacle, aye?”

“Uh. Yes, sir.”

“Hannah’s eyes are green, though.” He frowned. “Wouldn’t work.

“Well... green like the forest? Like emeralds?”

MacTavish looked thoughtful. Finally he replied “Kind of like disinfectant.”

Poet sighed. It was going to be a long night.

 

 

 


	3. Sandman

** Sandman **

The bar was filling up as time passed. It was a Saturday night, and by all accounts it was still early in the evening, but it was pay-day for the locals and they were making the most of their new, flush state. Sandman nudged Frost and jerked his head, nodding gently in the direction of the tables dotted around the edge of the room.

Frost turned round. He knew immediately who his friend was interested in. He’d seen one of the girls before, manning the supermarket checkout with an air of long-practised _ennui_. Tonight she was animated, cycling through fits of giggles and shrieks of laughter with the rest of them. Behind her, though, there was something more to his tastes: a voluptuous, pale girl with jet-black hair that fell over her bare shoulders. He glanced up at her face and saw that she’d noticed him staring. She winked at him, and it sent a shiver down his spine.

“ _Damn_.” He said, grinning at Sandman.

“ _Hot_ damn.” Sandman replied, holding up his beer bottle in salutation. Frost knocked his own against the neck of it and laughed.

“What are you two toasting to?” Archer dropped heavily into his chair. “Did I miss something?”

“Honeys at six o’clock.” Replied Frost.

Archer craned his neck to see and then raised his eyebrow in agreement. “Mm- _hmm.”_ He said. “You think we got a chance?”

“We got a chance, sure. You, on the other hand...” Sandman poked Archer.

“Oh, screw you!”

“There’s a queue.” He retorted, with a wry smile “Starting with at least two of those fine things you just saw.”

“Yeah. Well if I need a good rest, I’ll be sure to take up your services.”

“You shut the fuck about that!” Sandman snapped, his voice a low hiss and his face suddenly icy.

“Hey! Whoa! Whoa! Cool it, man!” Frost held up his hands. “Clearly, there is back story here that I am not familiar with?”

“Oh, hell yes! Yes there is!” said Archer.

“Oh here we fucking go!” Sandman slumped back in his chair and took a look swig of his beer.

“You haven’t heard this one? You honestly haven’t heard it?” said Archer. Frost shook his head. Archer giggled, and then took a deep breath.  “We were in Sweden, doing some ball-achingly dull war games shit with the Scandohollians. We get back, after freezing our nuts off for four weeks, and decide to hit the town. Now, we spot these fine young things. You know, like fucking porn angels. Tits, legs that go on forever, blonde. I felt like I was in the Playboy fucking mansion.”

“Sounds ideal.” Said Frost.

“Well yeah, _obviously_. So, me and him get friendly with these two girls, sisters, and head back to the hotel. I’m just getting into my stride when I hear this almighty fucking hammering on my door. I thought it was the fucking police or some shit like that, but then I heard this guy, here.” He pointed his bottle at Sandman across the table “He’s yelling “Archer, open the fucking door, man!””

“I do _not_ sound like that!” snapped Sandman.

“You fucking did! Anyway, I open the door and he starts whispering “Frost! Oh my god! I think I killed her!””

“Whoa!”

“Exactly! I was like “The fuck?” and then the girl, Helga, or some shit like that, comes up behind me and is all like “Oh. It is fine. She is just sleeping!””

“What?” Exclaimed Frost, incredulously. “You fucked her to sleep?” He began to laugh.

“Not so fucking loud!” Sandman hissed, glancing at the tables around him “She had fucking narcolepsy! It would have happened to _anyone_! It’s a fucking medical condition! Any one of you!” He growled, watching Frost collapse with mirth.  “And stop fucking laughing! It’s not funny.” He slapped Frost, hard, on the arm, but he didn’t seem to notice. He turned to Archer, who was beaming from ear to ear with the reaction. “And you.” Sandman’s eyes narrowed  “You... you’re Swedish voice is shit!” he snapped, and with that, stormed out.


	4. Roach

**Roach**

 

_Note: This is an except from The Wolf In The Wall, but as it contained a character name origin, I have lifted it wholesale from that fic and put it here._

 

“Are we there yet?” I asked, and instantly regretted it, knowing full well how cliched it sounded.

Riley rolled his eyes.  “No, not yet, but I didn’t think you wanted to arrive snoring and drooling.”

“I don’t _snore_!” I replied, indignant. I wiped my face, but it was dry. _Wanker_. I thought, again.

A loud thump made me jump, and I thought we had hit something, but the reverse was true: a biker had drawn level whilst overtaking and hammered his hand against the driver’s side window. They made an obscene gesture and roared past. Riley laughed, honked the horn, and waved at their disappearing back.

“Friend of yours?” I asked.

“It’s just Roach.”

“Roach?”

“Oh yeah. That’s eh… Gary Sanderson to you.”

“What?” I knew that name from somewhere, and then I remembered “Your second?” Sanderson, picked by Riley himself, was a at avocado-levels of computer literacy, but he was being picked from a crate of other avocados. Riley had aroused a professional curiosity, Sanderson hadn’t even registered. Riley had picked him for reason, and I was going to find out what that was in time.

“Roach like… the insect, or the fish?” I asked, eventually.

Riley snorted. “Bloody hell! The fish?”

“A roach is a kind of fish.” I replied, defensive “It’s a real thing.”

He shook his head, laughing to himself “Sort of like the insect. Are roaches an insect?”

I looked at him incredulously, but it was a genuine question “Yes.” I replied. “They are an insect.”

“Whatever, it doesn’t matter. A while ago, he took an overdose of Viagra. You know the –“

“I know what Viagra is.” I interrupted “Why-“

“Well, he thought he could go on for longer, I don’t know. Probably made sense at the time. Anyway, we had to take him to the hospital and you should have seen the-“

“I’m sorry!” I held up a hand, trying to stop him before he could elaborate further. “What the fresh hell does this have to do with anything?”

“Well, cockroaches, right? They don’t die. You can’t kill them. Famous for it.”

“Right…”

“So… it was like a cock that he couldn’t get rid of, like a cock… roach!”

“That is the _singularly_ worst joke, I have ever heard.” I said, seriously.

“I know!” Riley’s eyes lit up. “It’s brilliant!”

“How long have you been calling him that?”

Riley shrugged, “Oh, about five years.”

“I don’t even know this man, and now I’m thinking about his penis. Thanks for that!” I said, sarcastically.

“You asked!” he replied and started laughing “Penis! You are so fucking posh!”

I knew that there was no effective comeback from this, so I let him enjoy victory. I tried to push the unwanted image from my mind, and whilst I was failing, a new thought popped into my head.

“Do you have a… nickname too?” I asked.

“Yeah actually. They call me Ghost.”

I looked at him and he grinned back, lasciviously, daring me to ask.  _Oh, surely not…_  I thought.

“This _surely_ is not because of some…  _genitalia_ -based story too?” I rubbed my hand across my mouth, trying to conceal my pained expression.

“Well not,  _directly,_  as such, but we were in Helmand and-”

I just put my hands over my ears.


	5. Toad

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> This chapter was created for the Operation: Love the Underdog challenge, on the FYCO Discord which challenged participants to write more than 1,000 words about a minor character in the Call of Duty series i.e an NPC, who was not one each mission, and fortunately, I was struck with inspiration to explain how Toad got his name.

**Toad**

Archer hovered at the end of the bed, folding and unfolding his arms nervously. Every so often, one of Wilson’s monitors would alarm, and his own pulse would accelerate in tandem, but then the noise would settle as quickly as it began, and Wilson would giggle at nothing again. Sometimes, he would seem to recognise objects, and people around him, but then he would lapse into silence again and resume staring into space.  He had been this way for three hours.

“What the _fuck_ happened?” snapped MacTavish. Their commander wasn’t pleased at being dragged out of his first night in bed for several days, and it he made it clear in his tone.

The doctor beside them shrugged, fingering the stethoscope draped around her neck thoughtfully. “We don’t know. His tox and drug screens were negative, and his brain seems normal on the scan. Of course, if there’s something subtle, we might not find out until we can get him an MR, but...” she trailed off, her mouth twisted as she considered diagnoses. She sighed. “There’s nothing we know of that presents like this, unless he’s taken something we’re not aware of...” She looked pointed at Archer.

 “No. He wouldn’t.” Archer shook his head.

MacTavish cocked his head, raising his eyebrows questioningly. Archer wanted to shrink under his steel-grey glare.

“He had a couple of beers, just like the rest of us. No one wanted to party, we were all dog-tired. And anyway, I _know_ him. He’s not into that.”

“Could someone... have slipped something in his drink? Perhaps as a prank, or because they didn’t like him?” asked the doctor, gently. Archer wasn’t sure if she was being serious, or just giving him a way out to save Wilson’s own skin.

“Everyone likes Wilson.” replied Archer, shaking his head. “I mean, he’s annoying sometimes, but he’s always got your back. And... yeah... we do stupid stuff, but... why would they draw attention to it by letting us bring him here?”

MacTavish growled “If this is some cunt's idea of joke, they’re _dead_.”

The doctor sighed “Well... did anything happen to him, on Bighorn?”

 “Like what?”

“Like, something bad?”

“What you trying to say?” interrupted MacTavish and she glared at him.

“Well... sometimes the job gets to people. They break down.”

On the bed, Wilson reached out into the empty air, plucking and pawing into nothing. He laughed again and said, in a breathy whisper. “Pretty!”

“Well?” MacTavish glowered at Archer. “Did anything happen?”

Archer thought back, scratching the back of his neck nervously. They had reached the objective without incident, a bluff overlooking the river plains that gave them a perfect view onto the valley floor. It had been a vicious eighteen hour tab from the drop-off point, laden with enough kit to last them the three days of Operation Bighorn: a series of exercises that involved the various divisions resident in Ford Carson, and a few select outsiders. The 141 were the enemy, and were meant to be escaping and evading through the Rockies to either freedom, or a revision course in enhanced interrogation resistance, depending on whether they got caught.

He shook his head. “We made it to the objective, linked up with the other group and made it back to the extraction point. It was... textbook.”

“You call this, _textbook_?” MacTavish gestured at the bed. “ _Something_ must have happened to him out there.”

Archer tried to think back, but Wilson had just been... Wilson. He whispered jokes, he tried to make them play stupid games to pass the time, he told stories...

Archer shrugged “Just usual... stupid Wilson... and his stupid frog.”

“Frog? Who’s Frog?” MacTavish asked, a bewildered expression on his face.

Archer laughed. “No. He found this big frog and tried to feed it potato chips. He got quite attached to it.” He felt bad for ratting out Wilson’s pet, but if he got better, he probably didn’t want to find it had died of neglect. “I should check in on it.”

“What?” said MacTavish “Feed it? He brought it _back_?”

“Yeah. Stupid Wilson. It’s in a box, in his room.” He muttered. “He kept saying that it liked him and maybe it was a secret princess because it stuck around the camp."

“A frog?” said the doctor looking from Wilson, spaced out and giggled on the bed, back to MacTavish and Archer. “Did he... did it kiss it?”

“Yeah.” Archer laughed “I bet him fifty bucks that he wouldn’t, but he did. It was... gross.” He twisted his mouth, thinking about the disgust slime oozing from the creature onto Wilson’s lips. He shuddered.

“And he brought it back?”

“Yep.”

“Bring it to me.” She ordered suddenly. ”But don’t touch it.” She threw gloves at him.

“What the fuck?” said MacTavish, stunned “Why do you want the frog?”

She stared at him, holding her ground. Archer had the feeling that after this long in Carson, she was used to dealing with people like MacTavish. “Just, bring it to me.”

Fifteen minutes later they were back, with MacTavish complaining alternately about the stupidity of the people in his employ and the capricious whims of women generally for the entire trip. Archer had found the toad in a damp box, the cardboard already crumbling under the weight of the wet moss and bowls of water contained within. On the side, scrawled in Wilson’s crabby hand, was the name “Trevor”.

Not sure if the box might also be important, between they had manhandled it into a black bin-liner and carried it gingerly over the road.

“Oh man.” Said the doctor, as she opened the lid. She laughed.

“What’s so funny?” growled MacTavish.

“That’s... not a frog.” She said. “It’s a toad.”

“It’s a _toad_?” snapped MacTavish. This offhand remark was too much for him to bear “Oh well! I’ll sleep better tonight, safe in my bed, knowing that it’s no longer Trevor the Frog, but Trevor the _Toad_! Perhaps you’d like us to bring you some more wee beasties that we might not have got right!”

“You’re not from round here, are you?” said the doctor, unmoved by his tirade and scooping up the rotund form of Trevor in her twice-gloved hand.

“Is she deaf?” MacTavish looked at Archer, bewildered.

“This is a Colarado River Toad.” She held up her hand as MacTavish opened his mouth to speak. She held Trevor up to her face, where it wiggled its chubby legs in the air fruitlessly. “Pretty common and fairly dull except for their interesting defence mechanism of secreting a highly hallucinogenic toxin through their skin.”

“What?” MacTavish and Archer said in unison. They looked each other.

She looked at the giggling Wilson, who was audibly commenting on invisible sparkles. “Dude! He’s tripping _balls_.”

“Do you mean to say that he kissed this frog-“

“Toad.” She corrected.

MacTavish looked apoplectic at her interruption, and Archer braced himself for a meltdown, but MacTavish clenched his jaw and managed to claw together enough self control to speak calmly through gritted teeth  “That he kissed this _toad_ and this is the result?”

“Yup” She put Trevor back in his box and closed the lid “Look, he’s probably going to be fine”

“ _Probably_?”

“Well... sometimes people get really bad palpitations. The odd one dies, but...” she shrugged nonchalantly, ignoring their horrified expressions “... he’s doing okay. It should wear off by the morning.”

MacTavish pinched the bridge of his nose between his thumb and forefinger, slowly massaging the skin. “Fucking brilliant. I leave you alone for a few hours and this...” he gestured at Wilson, who hiccuped, and laughed. “This happens!”

 Archer stayed silent, not wanting to incur any more wrath than he already had.

“You.” He stabbed the air in Archer’s direct. “You, can watch Toad Botherer here. I am going to sleep.” And with that, he stormed out.

Wilson began to croak.

 

 

 

 


End file.
